3
Brynn
My Netflix account has Carson’s Cove ready and waiting in my favorites as if it too expected that I’d need a little comfort-binging tonight. But before I can pick up the remote and press play, the door to Josh’s bedroom swings open and he wanders out wearing nothing but a pair of light-gray low-slung sweatpants.
This is not the first time he’s wandered around my townhouse half-naked.
It started happening shortly after he moved in.
He emerged late one morning from his room in nothing but his gym shorts. To be fair, I was home sick from work. He likely didn’t expect me to be there. But even when he spotted me lying on the couch, he didn’t seem to care. I rationalized that I was just being a grouch. He was a new face moving into my personal space, and there was bound to be an adjustment period. Then one night, after a long cry caused by a SiriusXM bill that showed up at my house with Matt’s name on it, I walked into the kitchen to find Josh making eggs in his boxers and this threadbare Anaheim T-shirt that he loves. It clings to all the right places and you can easily make out his nipples. It’s almost as bad as being top-naked. He was talking to someone on the phone. His mom, I think. I could only make out bits of the conversation as he made his eggs, his forearms flexing as he flicked his wrist and flipped them from sunny-side up to over easy. I don’t know if it was the arms, or maybe some culinary competency kink I never knew I had, but I felt the stirrings of attraction. I immediately knew it was a bad idea. He was my roommate. I had just reached the milestone of saying I was over Matt and actually being over Matt. The last thing I needed was Temptation Island in my kitchen making breakfast for dinner. I almost terminated our roommate agreement right there.
But I let him stay.
In this economy, beggars with variable-term mortgages cannot be choosers.
But in that moment, I made a choice to draw a firm boundary for our relationship, with Josh Bishop and his annoyingly sexy body on one side and me on the other. Up until now, it’s been a hard line. That is, until my brief lapse in judgment when I borrowed money earlier tonight.
“So.” He drops onto the couch beside me and heaves a single leg onto the coffee table. “What are we watching?”
I stare at him for a moment, just to make sure what I think is happening is happening.
“Well, I was about to watch Carson’s Cove.”
He adds his second leg, stretching both of them out as he leans back into the cushions.
“And I guess you are watching it with me?” I ask.
He glances over, not looking the least bit fussed. “Is that all right?”
Is it?
“It’s fine.” My eyes dip for a moment to the golden bronzeness of his chest. “But you are going to need to put a shirt on first.”
“What?”
“You’ve already witnessed enough of my humiliation this evening. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”
He eyes me as if debating if my request is legitimate. After a moment, he gets up, walks into his bedroom, and returns a moment later, pulling the threadbare Anaheim shirt over his head.
“No.” I point at his door. “Different shirt.”
He pauses with it half-on. Again, he waits to see if there’s some punch line coming. When there isn’t one, he repeats the earlier process and this time comes out wearing a newer-looking black crewneck.
Better.
“Anything else?” He sinks back down beside me, an amused dimple suddenly making an appearance on his left cheek.
“Yes. You need to promise not to talk.”
His eyebrows rise a fraction of an inch. “But what if I have questions?”
“Then you need to ask them now.” I click play and the opening credits begin to roll. “You have exactly thirty-six seconds.”
“You’ve watched the entire series twice since I moved in, it’s not like you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“That wasn’t a question. It was an observation.”
He reaches out and grabs a handful of my popcorn. “I wasn’t finished. So, what’s the deal with it?”
Unbeknownst to Josh, the question he’s just asked is more intimate than anything Ford or Lainey or anyone else has asked me in a long time.
“This is going to take a lot longer than thirty-six seconds.” I hit pause, mentally preparing the lecture he just unknowingly asked for. “Carson’s Cove is basically the perfect television show. It’s got everything: teenage angst and a small New England town where everyone and their mother is beautiful—and I mean that very literally. Then there’s the banter—I live for the banter.” I pick up a pillow and clutch it to my chest. “There’s lots of drama but no out-of-the-blue twists. No red weddings. The home team always wins the big game, or the unassuming bookworm undergoes a makeover and becomes a beautiful prom queen. Even the super sad or tragic episodes work themselves out. The worst fight can always be fixed with a grand romantic gesture.”
Josh raises an amused eyebrow. “I did not figure you for a cheesy romantic.”
I shrug. “I’m not. In real life, I find public declarations of love absolutely mortifying, but in Carson’s Cove, they work.”
“Well, then,” Josh says, grabbing another handful of popcorn, “I’m glad I’m finally checking it out.” He settles farther into the couch cushions, making it clear he’s invested, as I hit play again and the opening credits roll, panning over the quaint New England seaside town with its picturesque main street, then the famous white gazebo with its ocean views.
What I didn’t fully explain to Josh was how the show became an anchor during my tumultuous teenage years. I’d have a fight with a friend, then come home and watch Sloan and Poppy—best friends who always had each other’s backs—and my faith in friendship would be restored. Or I’d find out my crush was into someone else, then spend hours watching Spencer Woods, who may date other people but always unwaveringly pines for the girl next door. Carson’s Cove is comfort food in television form.
So when I came home one day at the age of twenty-six and found a note filled with every cliché I never wanted to hear—“We’ve grown apart…We got married before we knew who we really were as people…I love you, I’m just not in love with you anymore”—I started binging episodes again as if they were drugs. As my whole world shifted and my role changed from happy wife to divorcée, Carson’s Cove’s predictable patterns were a balm. A steady presence as life as I knew it shattered around me.
“What do you think?” Josh nods at the television. “One more? Or are we calling it a night?”
I blink at the screen, only now aware that the episode has ended and Netflix has started loading the next one. Season five, episode twenty-three: the season finale, which unexpectedly became the series finale. America’s favorite girl next door, Sloan Edwards, has a plan to finally tell her best friend, Spencer Woods, that she’s in love with him after she wins the annual Ms. Lobsterfest pageant. But a missing dress messes up her plans, and she chickens out, leaving Spencer in the dark as he heads off to LA to become an actor.
It’s the cliff-hanger of all cliff-hangers.
Will they return, or won’t they?
Will Sloan ever get the chance to tell Spencer how she really feels?
It was the perfect textbook setup to keep viewers hooked until the following fall’s season six premiere.
Except the show never came back.
It was the one and only time Carson’s Cove fell short. Where it didn’t deliver its satisfaction-guaranteed ending.
According to the fan blogs, ratings started to slip toward the end of season five. A few of the actors had started to cross over to movie careers and demand more money. Shortly after the season finale aired, the show was canceled.
I still remember the day they announced it. I sobbed so hard that I burst the capillaries in both of my eyeballs. My mother had to call my high school and tell them that my fictional dog died because she was too embarrassed to tell them the truth: Her daughter had sunk into a deep depression over the end of a teenage television show.
I glance over at Josh, who is still staring at me, awaiting my call to watch the next episode.
“No,” I tell him as I kick back the last of my wine. “I think I’m going to head to bed.”
The events of the day have drained me. The mental exhaustion has morphed into a full-blown body ache.
Josh stands and holds out his hand to help me up. I feel the urge to say something. A thank-you for the rescue and the talk. But as I open my mouth, I’m interrupted by a sharp knock on the front door.
Josh and I both freeze.
“Are you expecting someone?” I glance at my phone. It’s 12:01 a.m. A little late for visitors, though maybe not unusual for Josh.
He shakes his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but maybe you should let me get it.”
He moves to the door, but before I can object, he opens it a crack. Then, satisfied with whoever is on the other side, he flings it fully open.
Standing on my front step is a guy. He looks to be in his twenties, with bleached-blond hair that sticks up in every direction. He’s wearing a pale-yellow T-shirt for a band whose name is covered by a large white paper box in his hands.
“Which one of you is Brynn Smothers?” he asks.
Josh turns to me and grins. “Looks like you were expecting someone.”
The guy ignores Josh and holds out his box. “Uber Eats for—oh, hey—” He points to something behind me. “Carson’s Cove. I love that show. I’m kind of embarrassed to say it, but I’ve watched the entire series at least twice.”
This revelation instantly relaxes me. This man is one of my people.
“Don’t feel bad,” I tell him. “My number is more like six, and I’ve probably watched some episodes even more than that.”
The stranger looks pleased. “Really? Which ones?”
I probably should be mildly mortified about my compulsive television viewing habits right now, but I want to answer his question. “Definitely the hurricane episode. I love how it’s Spencer and Sloan alone in his house all night with nothing but looming danger and candlelight for practically the whole episode. I spent the majority of my teen years thinking that was the epitome of romance.”
The stranger nods. “I like that episode too. But it drove me crazy that they never kissed.”
My stomach flutters as I think about it.
“But you know it’s not going to happen right at the beginning of the episode,” I counter. “Right when the power goes out, Sloan makes some offhand comment about how they should probably turn off all the lights so they don’t come blaring on in the middle of the night if the power comes back. But if you watch closely, they don’t ever actually do it. It’s the perfect setup to ruin an almost-kiss.”
A slow smile spreads across the Uber driver’s lips.
There’s something about it that strikes me as familiar, as if we’ve met before, but I can’t quite place it.
He holds out the white box. “Happy birthday, Brynn.”
I take it from his hands, examining the dark-blue logo stamped on top, which reads Bake a Wish.
I flip open the lid and find a small white birthday cake covered with rainbow sprinkles. A single white candle is nested in its center.
“Oh, shit.” Josh takes a step toward me. “Brynn. I didn’t know it was your birthday.” He peers into the box, his woodsy smell mingling with the delicate vanilla of the cake. “So, was that why you were out tonight? A birthday celebration?”
“Not exactly.” I stare at the single white candle, once again reminded of the disappointments of the night, which leads to a new question: If my friends didn’t remember my birthday, who did?
“Hey, who ordered this—” Before the sentence is out, it’s interrupted by the sound of my front door closing.
I turn to Josh. “Where did he go?”
Josh looks from the cake to the closed door and shrugs. He takes the box from my hands. “Can I cut you a slice?”
Although the sweet vanilla scent still lingers in my nose, it’s a little late for cake…. I shake my head. “I really shouldn’t. We can just save it for tomorrow.”
Josh lingers, giving me an Are you sure? look before nodding and then taking it into the kitchen. I fold my Snuggly over the back of the couch and search for the remote to shut off the TV. A picture of the cast sitting on the dock at the marina still lingers on the screen. I finally locate the remote under the coffee table. As I hit the power button, the room goes dark until I turn and see a tiny orange flame lingering near the kitchen.
It comes toward me like an eerie apparition until Josh’s face appears behind it.
He’s holding up a dinner plate with the cake with the single white birthday candle stuck in the middle.
“My nana always said that it’s not a birthday until you make a wish. So you have to at least have a bite tonight.” He hands me the plate. “Happy birthday, Brynn.”
My usually cynical self—the one who would normally roll her eyes at something so sentimental—is quieted by the orange licks of flame twisting and dancing in the dark.
A wish.
What single thing do I want more than anything else in this world?
To get back together with Matt? Um, no. That ship has sailed.
To find love again? Maybe…but finding love wasn’t my problem the first time. I want to keep it. I want my life to play out exactly as it’s supposed to for once. No plot twists. No Bumble jerks with cinnamon roll profiles. Just friends who understand me and will forever have my back.
I want to finally get the perfect happily ever after.
So I close my eyes, hold on to that feeling, and blow.